


the glass slippers

by angharad_crewe



Category: Cinderella (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Falling In Love, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angharad_crewe/pseuds/angharad_crewe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Cinderella's adventures at the ball had gone a slightly different way?</p>
            </blockquote>





	the glass slippers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenella/gifts).



> Dear fenella, I really enjoyed writing for you! :) I hope you enjoy the story. Happy Yuletide! ♥
> 
> Also, I want to thank chordatesrock, who helped me with some important points in this. You're awesome.

It wasn’t that Ella was _ungrateful_ for her fairy godmother’s gifts. 

It was just that, well, these glass slippers didn’t half pinch. And the glittering flash of jewels encrusting everything from beribboned shoes to elaborate hairdos was beginning to give her a smashing headache. _And_ everyone seemed to know everyone else, so that even the girls who didn’t seem particularly interested in the prospect of getting into His Royal Highness’s overly-starched dress pants were far too busy laughing together and catching up on the latest gossip to pay any attention to a friendless girl standing on the outskirts of the crowd.

Ella surreptitiously slipped one of her feet out of its glass slipper and balanced on the other, tucking the free foot behind her knee. The relief from one set of blisters was blissful, and she smiled, looking around her. Midnight, her godmother said? Ella could probably make it that long. The ball _was_ exciting – full of laughter and noise and the whisper of skirts, beautiful women and beautiful dresses. Plus, the canapés making the rounds on gleamingly polished silver platters were highly delicious. Most of the girls at the ball were too tightly laced into their dresses to breathe, let alone eat a canapé, but her fairy godmother apparently believed in comfort as well as fashion, so Ella indulged with glee.

There was a giggle next to her.

Ella opened an eye. (She’d closed it to focus on the rapturousness of her taste buds.)

“You looked like that was the best thing you’d ever tasted,” the girl next to her informed her.

Ella considered this. “It might have been,” she said, gravely.

The girl was about her age, Ella thought. Short, generously built; her dress, far more simple and sensible-looking than most of the fabulous lace and jeweled creations around them, showed off her strong arms and highlighted the color of her eyes at the same time. Truly excellent dressmaking. Perhaps she had a fairy godmother as well.

“Well then,” the girl said, grinning up at Ella, “I know where we can find some more.”

If Ella’s fairy godmother had been there, she probably would have squawked with indignation and pointed out that Ella hadn’t danced with the prince yet. But she wasn’t there, and when Ella looked back over her shoulder at the dance floor, she saw the prince gamely dancing with one eligible maiden after another. It’d take him all night to get around to her, and she’d probably end up holding him up for most of the dance so he wouldn’t fall over from sheer exhaustion. Dancing all night was only fun if you had the constitution for it, and the prince looked like he had the constitution for reading books and petting kittens.

Plus, these glass slippers really did pinch.

“Lead on,” Ella said, grinning back at the girl. “But first…” She stepped out of the other slipper and picked them both up, careful not to let them clink against each other. “That’s better.”

~

“I’m Andi,” the girl told her, as they threaded their way carefully through the ballroom, trying not to trip over skirts or bump into the mothers and grandmothers who lined the walls. (Ella had already checked, and her stepmother was safely on the far side of the palatial ballroom.)

“Ella,” she said in return – or started to say, before Andi yelped in alarm and pulled her through a doorway.

After a minute, Ella whispered, “Why are we hiding in a cloakroom?”

“Because,” Andi whispered back, “my minder was coming this way. She wants me to mingle. But she won’t look for us in here.”

“Mingle?” Ella asked, squinting in the dim light.

“ _You_ know,” Andi said, ruefully. “It’s all about making important friends and talking to the right people. Buttering up Lady X and flattering Lady Y.” She grinned, suddenly, and in the near-darkness Ella could see the glint of her teeth. “But look, I _am_ making a new friend! Hannah should be pleased.”

“I’m nobody important,” Ella demurred, looking down and wiggling her bare toes. 

“Poppycock,” Andi said, sounding imperious, and then grabbed her hand. “Come on, she’s gone. If we go this way, we can avoid the crush.”

~

Palaces, Ella decided, were run on slightly different lines than ordinary houses. Certainly she couldn’t imagine many other parties where two slightly disheveled young ladies could tumble, laughing, into what looked vaguely like a pantry area, nearly careen into a solemnly aloof butler (butless? Ella wasn’t sure what you called lady butlers), and announce, “We’re taking these,” before absconding with two platters of canapés. 

(The announcement, and absconding, were both Andi’s doing. Although she had handed one of the platters to Ella to carry, so Ella was an accessory.)

The butless hadn’t seemed to mind, though. Well, Ella wasn’t sure she’d ever ‘seem to mind’ anything – her poker face was probably welded on – but her eyelashes had barely flickered as she said, “Very well, milady,” and she’d even pointed to a platter in the back and said “May I recommend these?” Perhaps young ladies _did_ tumble into the pantry at regular intervals, famished by all the dancing, and if she and Andi explored the palace long enough, they’d find whole posses of girls tucked into window seats and alcoves with pilfered platters, talking and laughing and resting their own blisters.

As for her and Andi, their alcove was actually an upstairs balcony, looking out over the dancing. Andi had led her to a back staircase, and they’d climbed carefully up it, balancing the food (Ella had had visions of delicious little salmon potato cakes tipping off the platter and bouncing in slow motion down the staircase), before tucking themselves up against the railing, grinning at each other and arranging their skirts comfortably.

“So,” Andi said, through a mouthful of a cheese muffin, “I should have asked – is your mother one of those pushy types that’s determined to get you to marry the prince?” She swallowed the mouthful. “Is she frantically searching the crowd for you down there?”

Ella shook her head, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin thoughtfully provided by the butless. “My mother died when I was young. I have a stepmother, and stepsisters, but they won’t be looking for me.”

Andi looked apologetic. “Sorry. My mother died when I was little too. No stepmother for me, though, just a minder.”

“What does a minder actually do?” Ella asked, eyeing the avocado salad bites.

Andi waved an expressive hand. “Mostly scold me. I’m an only child, so there’s all sorts of things I have to learn. How to run a household, how to deal with town councils, how to manage a budget, how to make friends and influence people, you get the picture.” She picked up another cheese muffin and frowned thoughtfully down at it. “It’s not that I mind, really – better me than my cousin, he mostly wants to daydream in the library and he doesn’t have a managerial bone in his body – but sometimes I just want to ride my horse or go to the beach, you know?”

Ella had known Andi was noble – the dress would have told her as much, even if the imperious manner with the butless hadn’t – but imagining her running a barony (or even a dukedom, she thought, looking at Andi’s capable hands) was dizzying. She couldn’t be older than Ella herself. Although, she thought, Father had been noble, too… would Ella have been deep in similar training now, had he lived? Would she have been complaining about learning to balance accounts, instead of scrubbing stairs? Would she have a flock of noble friends, and be giggling in the ballroom with them now, bedecked in jewels from head to toe?

Andi sighed. “Listen to me, whinging. Tell me about you.”

So, around an asparagus wrap, Ella told her. She left out a lot, but she wondered how much Andi guessed, looking thoughtfully at her from under flyaway brows. She suspected Andi was the type to talk mostly about herself, but that didn’t always mean they didn’t listen too. (If people were like mice, anyway. Ella didn’t have much experience with people, but she had plenty of experience with micekind.)

“So my stepmother prefers that I stay close to home,” she finished.

Andi was frowning slightly, her fingers steepled under her chin, but she didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she shook herself, a little like Bruno, and bounded to her feet. “Come on,” she said, extending a hand to help Ella up. “I want to show you my favorite place in the castle.”

“Shouldn’t we clean up after ourselves?” Ella asked, looking down at their discarded platters with a pang. She remembered all too well the hours of cleanup after one of her stepsisters’ parties. She hated leaving a mess for a servant, as if she was as snooty and cavalier as Drizella.

“Oh, there’ll be someone lurking about,” Andi said, cheerfully. “Oi, whoever’s hiding behind that pillar keeping an eye on us, make yourself useful and take the platters back down to the kitchen, okay? And help yourself to the leftover asparagus wraps.”

A blankly anonymous man in palace livery came out and picked up the platters, full of dignity. Andi grinned at him. “Thanks, Olaf.” Then, to Ella, she said, “Come on! The night’s flying by.”

Midnight, Ella remembered. She had to be gone by midnight. 

~

“Here,” Andi said, pushing open a door and skipping in. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

It was indeed. The candles in the wall sconces lit up a vast library. The bookcases on the wall were of beautifully worked wood, the carvings alone probably worth a fortune. But the books! The books in their rich bindings, standing row on row on row – they practically took Ella’s breath away. She’d always thought the library at home was beautiful, but it was nothing compared to this.

“Oh,” she said, except it came out more like _Ohhhhhhhh_.

“This is my favorite place,” Andi said, pointing to a corner that seemed to be a pile of rugs and blankets. It looked cozy and warm, and Ella could imagine snuggling into a nest with a book. Perhaps in the daytime, when those massive windows would flood the library with sunlight, or perhaps at night, with a candle at a safe distance.

“You come here often enough to have a favorite place?” she asked, turning to take in the full room.

Andi shrugged. “I know the prince a little. We used to have dance lessons together when we were kids.” She smiled. “Want to see our ballroom?”

What Ella really wanted to do was to settle in to this library and not emerge for days – weeks! – but as Andi appeared to be giving her a tour, it seemed rude to refuse. “Of course.”

Andi looked at her closely, then smiled. “Well. Maybe in a few minutes. Try out the book nest first. And the ladders!”

She ended up tucking herself into the nest next to Andi, who hauled down a gorgeously illustrated book of fairy tales. They read one together by candlelight. Andi did the wolf’s voice, and Ella the little lost maiden, and Andi’s wolf was so deliciously menacing that Ella didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver. She shifted closer to Andi instead.

~

“So this was where you learned how to dance?” Ella asked, looking around at the ballroom. It was barely a tenth of the size of the one downstairs, but it was quite big enough as it was. 

Andi spun in the center of the floor, her intricate braids flying out behind her. “Madame Rose was a terror. I had to do everything perfectly, or she’d make us start all over from the beginning! Sometimes we were in here for _hours_.”

“For hours?” Ella asked, setting her glass slippers down and taking a tentative step onto the floor. It looked glossy enough to be slippery, but in her bare feet she felt secure. “That seems harsh on children.”

“Well, perhaps not _hours_ ,” Andi allowed. “But she was very fierce about royalty not having special privileges.”

Ella followed Andi’s lead, spinning lightly on the ball of one of her feet. “What was the prince like?”

“Thought you weren’t interested in him,” Andi teased. 

“I’m not!” Ella protested, stepping into Andi’s arms when she beckoned. “I’m just curious.”

Andi swept her into a dance. It was one Ella knew, and for a moment she lost herself in remembering the steps. Then Andi said, “Well, he was a bit of a twerp, if you must know. Short, and short-tempered to match. He was always tripping over his own feet, and he thought dancing was a waste of time.”

“It isn’t,” Ella said, promptly. “It teaches balance, and grace, and discipline.” She smiled, moving under Andi’s direction, spinning in her bare feet on the polished ballroom floor. Andi’s hand in hers was steady, the hand on her back warm and firm. “And you can have such interesting conversations with your dance partner.”

“Why thank you, milady,” Andi said, bowing deeply over her hand and pressing it to her lips in exquisite courtliness.

Ella laughed and dropped her a curtsey, feeling flushed. “I’m not a milady,” she demurred. Technically, she supposed she might be – if her father’s title had passed down to her instead of going to her stepmother – but she certainly didn’t feel like one. It was hard to feel like a lady when her hands were callused from scrubbing floors, and when she was acutely aware of how borrowed her finery was.

“Oh, but you are,” Andi said, and smiled. 

~

“What’s that?” Ella asked, leaning out over the balcony and pointing down.

Andi came up behind her, dropping her chin on Ella’s shoulder. “That? Oh, that’s the palace gardens. They’re beautiful. They have fourteen gardeners just for them.”

“Really?” Ella loved gardens, even though one of her least favorite tasks at home was weeding. You could hate the job and still love the result. “Vegetable gardens or flower gardens?”

“The kitchen gardens are out back,” Andi said, her breath ruffling Ella’s hair. “Those are the flower gardens.”

Ella hesitated. She hated to ask, when Andi had shown her so much already – and when she still half expected a palace guard to leap out and arrest them at any moment – but it had to be worth a try. “Do you think…could we see them?”

“Of course!” Andi said, sounding thrilled to get the question. “But we can’t go the usual way, we’d have to go back downstairs and through the ballroom.” She paused for thought, her pointed chin digging into Ella’s shoulder a little. “I know! Just the thing. Follow me.”

They ended up in a small, comfortable room. “Here,” Andi said, throwing open a wardrobe. “If we change into something more suitable, we can go out the way I used to when I was younger.”

Ella looked down at herself. “This isn’t suitable?”

Andi turned to grin at her. “Not for skinning down a rope ladder.”

~

Ella felt faintly disloyal leaving her fairy godmother’s dress behind, but Andi was right, there was no way she’d manage to go down a rope ladder in it. She hung it in the wardrobe carefully, and set her glass slippers gently beneath it. “You’re sure they’ll be fine?” she asked.

“Crystal,” Andi said, patting her on the shoulder. “Here, I’ll lock it.”

“They keep a room for you?” Ella asked, eyeing the rope ladder a bit nervously. She was strong, and it wasn’t a far way to the ground, but even so…

Andi shrugged. “The prince and the king practically rattle around the family quarters these days. They’re meant to house all sorts of aunts and uncles and cousins, but it’s just the two of them now, plus a cousin or two. I’ve always had this room.”

Ella couldn’t imagine a life in which you had a room in the royal palace as well as a whole noble castle of your own. Their house was large and beautiful, but it was nothing compared to this.

“Here,” Andi said, handing her a simple pair of riding breeches and a long-sleeved green shirt. “These should fit you.”

They’d obviously been made for someone shorter, but Ella managed. Before she knew it, she was standing next to Andi, looking out at the rope ladder again.

“We don’t have to,” Andi said, resting a hand on the small of her back for support. “We can just stay here if you’d rather.”

But Ella did want to see the flowers. She’d probably never get a chance like this again. Certainly not by moonlight, with a laughing, friendly guide by her side. 

“Come on,” she said, and swung her leg over the side of the balcony.

~

The flowers were as beautiful as Ella had imagined – no, more.

They walked together in the moonlight, sunk in companionable silence. Every so often, Andi would point out a flower and tell her a story. Sometimes it was about how the gardeners had tracked down the variety, going to far-off kingdoms in search of a rare orchid; sometimes, it was about how the king’s aunt fell in love with a visiting musician under that pear tree, lying in the grass for hours to listen to the musician play her harp. Sometimes it was about how a third-born princess had taken cuttings from her favorite rosebush and set off into the world to seek her fortune, finding it at last in an island kingdom where she founded a contemplative order and tended her rosebushes, growing to a terrific age and leaving her mark in the world’s soil.

“You know so many stories,” Ella said, turning on her side. 

They were lying in the grass, surrounded on all sides by lilacs. There was a bench for the nature-lover, but there was something about lying in the grass, looking up at the stars, that appealed to Ella, something that no cold bench could provide. 

Andi smiled at her. Her smile looked almost shy, somehow, here among the lilacs. “I’ve always liked stories. When I was little I used to pester everyone for them.”

“The gardeners?” 

“Oh, everyone. The gardeners, my dancing teacher, the woman who tried to teach me deportment, my riding grooms, the scullery maids...” She trailed off. “After my mother died I ran a bit hellion, I’m afraid. My father tried to teach me what I’d need, but he didn’t know what to do with a child. He’s never known exactly what to do with me.”

“I know he loves you,” Ella said, softly. She couldn’t imagine anyone not loving Andi. Her bright, open face, her easy friendliness, her lack of pomposity or snobbishness, her simple joy – everything about her was perfect. She wasn’t shy, or nervous, or so sheltered the thought of talking to the prince made her blood run a little cold.

“Maybe,” Andi said, her voice almost as hushed as Ella’s. “I suppose he does. These past few years he hasn’t stopped pestering me to make a political marriage.” She sighed. “I know it’s not that he wants to get rid of me, or that he doesn’t want me to be happy. It’s all about wanting what’s best, about using my marriage as a bargaining chip.”

Ella couldn’t imagine what that would be like. She had to work for her stepmother and stepsisters, but at least they weren’t trying to marry her off to someone she didn’t even love. If her father had lived, would he have been trying to find her a suitable husband to secure their family’s financial and social future? Would he have been hovering at the ball, hoping she caught the eye of the prince? Would she have felt pressured to make a good match, for her family’s sake, even if she didn’t care a fig for the husband in prospect?

“I’m not even sure I want to get married,” Andi confessed, sounding a little lost. “Definitely not for political reasons. For love – yes, maybe someday. But if I did what Father wants, I’d be married in six months and giving him grandchildren in another year.”

Ella remembered a bluff, hearty man who swung her up in the air when he came home from business trips, who always brought her a ribbon for her hair and who sat up reading bedtime stories to her by candlelight. Would he have been proud of her? Would he have pressured her to make a political match and give him grandchildren to carry on the family line? Or would he have let her make her own choice, in her own time?

She knew he would have loved her, whatever else happened.

“I’ve done my best to be a good daughter otherwise,” Andi was saying. “I’ve learned everything I should. I’ve gone to all my lessons, I even went overseas last year to study diplomacy with the Sisters of Miraine.” She stared up at the stars, her jaw obstinately set in a way Ella recognized as warding off unwanted tears. “I just can’t give him this. I _won’t_ marry without love, no matter what else I might have to do for politics. He’ll just have to make do with my cousin and pressure him into providing the heirs.”

Ella reached out to tangle their hands together, giving what comfort she could. “He’s your _father_ ,” she said, simply, trying to keep the longing out of her voice. “He must love you.”

Andi rolled closer, to lie next to her under the stars. “Not all fathers love their daughters,” she said. “But you’re right. He does love me, I know he does, completely.” She laughed, a small percussive sound. “He just has to remember that over all the frustration I’ve been causing him.”

Ella squeezed her hand, and sent a quick wish up to the stars. She imagined she saw one of the stars wink back.

~

Somewhere above them, someone opened a window. The music spilled out, faint and delicate; it was probably the late hour, or perhaps the sheer unreality of this entire day, but Ella could almost imagine it sparkling in the air above them.

Andi got to her feet, face turned up toward the music.

“Shall we dance?” Ella said, and was surprised to find that the playful tone she’d meant to use had turned somehow deeper.

Andi smiled, reaching down her hand, and Ella took it, letting herself be pulled up and into Andi’s arms.

They danced together in the moonlight, surrounded by the lilacs. 

~

“And then Jaq said -”

Ella’s story was interrupted by the clang of a clock. She looked up reflexively, and froze. Midnight? It couldn’t possibly be midnight. She couldn’t have spent that much time – but as she ran over the evening’s timeline in her head, she realized that she must have. They’d spent at least an hour out here trading stories, after all, Andi’s milkmaid poetess for Ella’s prankster mice, Ella’s Lucifer-and-Bruno clashes for Andi’s horse that she secretly thought was a dog in a previous life. And then there had been the dancing, and then more stories, sitting side-by-side with their backs against the stone bench…

“What is it?” Andi asked, alertly.

“I have to go,” Ella said, springing to her feet and looking around wildly. Her dress and slippers were still up in Andi’s room, but she didn’t have time to climb the rope ladder to retrieve them. She thought they’d probably vanish when the clock finished striking midnight anyway. Her fairy godmother had been very certain about the hour.

The clock struck again, almost covering Andi’s small sound of distress. “Why? Stay until morning. The party won’t be over until then. If you’re cold we can go inside.”

“I’m not cold,” Ella said – the clock striking again – “but I have to go. I just have to.”

Somehow she didn’t feel like she could explain about her fairy godmother. It would take too long, for one thing, and perhaps it was illegal to attend a royal party under false pretenses. Andi would understand, she thought, but then she reconsidered – maybe she’d feel fooled, maybe she’d feel like Ella hadn’t been honest, concealing her magical help. Would a noblewoman really have wanted to spend a night like this with a scullery maid? 

Andi stood up next to her, as the clock struck a fourth time. “Okay,” she said quietly. 

“Thank you for everything,” Ella said, hurriedly, feeling it entirely inadequate, but needing to say _something_. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed myself.” On impulse, she reached out and squeezed Andi’s hand, trying to show her gratitude in her smile. “It was a beautiful evening.”

Andi smiled back at her, her eyes warm, and Ella almost lost track of the clock striking. “I thought so too.” She reached down and broke off a sprig of lilac, tucking it behind Ella’s ear. Her fingers lingered on Ella’s face, and for a moment, Ella almost thought…

And then the clock struck again, and she jerked in surprise, coming back to herself with a jolt. “I have to go,” she said again, and turned and ran in the direction Andi pointed, leaving both palace and night behind her.

In the coach, she looked out the window, through inexplicably blurry eyes, back to where a short figure in riding breeches was standing at the entrance to the garden. As she watched, Andi lifted her hand in a wave; Ella knew Andi wouldn’t be able to see her, but as the coach pulled away, horses running like the wind, she raised her hand in return.

~

Ella was sweeping the back stairs a week after that dreamlike night at the ball, when someone knocked at the front door.

Usually she would have been the one to answer – her stepmother and stepsisters usually stood on their dignity – but this week they were convinced that a messenger from the palace would arrive at any moment to announce that Drizella or Anastasia had been chosen as the prince’s bride, so Ella wasn’t entirely surprised to find that her stepmother had made it there first.

She turned to return to her work, only to freeze when she heard a familiar voice.

“Hello, Lady Tremaine. Is Ella here?”

“Ella?” Her stepmother sounded torn between surprise and obsequiousness. “Do you mean Drizella, Your Highness?”

Your Highness? Ella didn’t know much about court practices, but she thought noblewomen were addressed as milady, or maybe Your Grace. Was Andi’s family descended from a prince or princess? She vaguely remembered that those families outranked other nobles.

Andi sounded amused. “No, Lady Tremaine, I mean Ella. I have something to return to her.”

Her stepmother must have suddenly realized she was keeping a noblewoman standing on the steps. “Do please come in, Your Highness,” she said, smoothly. “I think there must have been some mistake. Cinderella is just a scullery maid. Has she offended you in some way? I assure you she will be severely punished.”

Ella slipped behind the curve of the stairs as Andi stepped through the doorway, just as beautiful as Ella remembered. Oh, now that Ella saw her in the daylight, her nose was rather prominent – like the king’s, so yes, she must be one of those royal cousins she’d mentioned – but Ella rather liked it. Her braids were less intricate today, securely tied for riding, and she wore a riding outfit the twin of the one she’d donned for the climb down to the rope ladder (and the twin of the one hanging neatly pressed in Ella’s room).

And in her hand were Ella’s glass slippers.

“If you punish her,” Andi said, in a perfectly pleasant voice, “I would be quite put out.”

Ella could see her stepmother drawing breath to reply, and thought it about time to step in before Andi was thrown out on her rear, noblewoman or no noblewoman. She set down her broom and edged out from behind the stairs.

Andi’s face lit up, and Ella felt suddenly short of breath. “Ella!”

“How did you find me?” Ella asked, trying not to look at her stepmother.

Andi grinned. “Part of my education has been learning all the noble houses by heart. You said you’d lost your father and lived with your stepmother and stepsisters. There aren’t many families fitting that description. And there was only one with an Ella.”

“Oh,” Ella said. Her cheeks felt warm, and to cover her awkwardness she reached out for her glass slippers. “I thought I’d never see these again.” _I thought I’d never see you again._

“That was never going to happen,” Andi said, softly, as if she could read Ella’s mind, their hands linked around the glass slippers.

“No?” Ella asked, daring to look up and meet Andi’s eyes.

“No,” Andi said, and smiled.

They might have stood there smiling forever, had Ella’s stepmother not become impatient. “Ella,” she said, in a voice Ella hadn’t heard since her father was alive and her stepmother had to be nice to her, “will the Princess be staying to tea?”

~

“The Princess?” Ella said, hands on hips, having pulled Andi outside to the orchard. She was distinctly aware that Bruno and Major were listening, and that her mice friends were no doubt around as well. They did love drama. “Explain.”

Andi laughed, palming the back of her neck sheepishly. “I meant to tell you. It’s only, we were having such a good time together, and there never seemed to be a good moment…”

“I thought the Prince was downstairs dancing,” Ella said, crossing her arms.

“Oh, that’s Thomas,” Andi said. “He’s my cousin. My father’s given up on ever getting grandchildren from me, so he’s trying to get honorary grandchildren out of Thomas.”

“So you’re the real Princess?” Ella asked. She was still confused.

“I’m Princess Miranda, though that’s entirely too stuffy for everyday use,” Andi said, scuffing her foot on the ground a little bashfully.

Apparently Ella missed a number of things after her father died. She didn’t remember Drizella and Anastasia talking about any of this, but then she didn’t remember them talking about many things – whenever Drizella saw her, she usually ended up being given more chores to do. 

“You’re going to be the _queen_ ,” she said, slowly, “and you spent the entire ball with a scullery maid.”

“Ella,” Andi said, suddenly serious, “I spent the entire ball with a funny, honest, gentle, beautiful, slightly sarcastic young woman. She told me stories about her pet mice and her horse and her dog, and she danced with me in a ballroom and climbed down a rope ladder and watched the stars come out. I don’t care who she is, as long as she’s you.”

She reached out her hands, shyly, and Ella found herself putting her own in them, almost as if in a dream. “Your father…” 

“My father,” Andi said, “just wants me to be happy.” She smiled. “It turns out you were right – he does love me just the way I am, after all.”

Ella knew her stepmother and stepsisters would be watching out the window, but she abruptly found that she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything except that Andi had come to find her, and that perhaps wishes your heart made did come true after all.

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness,” she said, dropping a deep curtsey.

“Ella,” Andi said, and pulled her close.

As they kissed under the orange tree, Ella thought she heard the faint sound of mice clapping. 

~

Ella never did end up dancing with Andi in the glass slippers.

She did, however, dance with her barefoot on many an occasion in the coming years. The magical first night they had shared together – and that magical first kiss under the orange tree – matured in time into a relationship that made the king smile with joy and Ella’s stepmother gnash her teeth. They wore lilacs in their hair at their wedding five years later, and Jaq supervised the creation of Ella’s wedding dress, and their kiss at the altar was only this side of indecently long.

The glass slippers eventually went into a glass case in the library, a permanent exhibit marking the night the Princess met her future bride. They thought they had done a wonderful job (and were inclined to be a little conceited about it).

Ella and Andi agreed.

~~~~~~~~


End file.
